New modular smartphone will let you upgrade its individual components or add sci-fi new functions.

Google just released a prototype of its Transformer-like smartphone of the future—a modular design called Project Ara that users can swap or add components onto at will.

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A Project Ara phone, once available to the public, would consist basically of an aluminum endoskeleton with a spare battery and connectors. All the other traditional components such as a processor, camera, and display–plus many more, most yet to be invented–would be available as attachable modules.

This Lego-like design is no less than an attempt to radically rethink the concept of a smartphone, which we generally imagine as a single device that can fit many roles. Independent hardware developers will be able to build their own components to integrate into the Ara phone. The possibilities such a gadget could open are practically limitless.